easy child's grades are slipping.

[Californiablonde]

So my former straight A student now has a one A, a couple B's, a C and an F. I am very upset. I asked him why he has a C in reading, his best subject. He told me he hasn't been turning in his weekend reading logs. He used going to his dad's as an excuse. Ummmm he always used to take his reading logs with him to his dad's and do them there. If for some reason he couldn't finish them at his dad's, he would do them on Monday morning at before school daycare. Now he's not even doing that. And this kid loves to read. Always has a book in front of his face. He just hasn't been writing the paragraphs each day for the logs. And as far as the F is concerned, he had a mummy project due last Thursday for his social studies class. He didn't even tell me about it till last minute, as in the day before it was due. He was supposed to work on it Christmas break! So I went ahead and emailed the teacher and asked if he could turn it in late, because the project called for me going out to buy supplies for it. His teacher told me he could finish it over this last weekend and he would get at least a B on it. So the project called for using duct tape. I borrowed some from my mom. She brought it over to my house, gave it to easy child and he lost it. We both looked everywhere for it. I have no idea what could have happened to it. It literally just vanished. I just checked his grades online and now he has an F in that class because he is not only missing the mummy assignment, but he is also missing another assignment as well. He used to be so on top of his schoolwork. He was so proud of himself for making the honor roll. Bragged about it to everyone. Now his grades are slipping. Why is he suddenly not caring anymore? Could his Focalin have stopped working for him? Maybe he needs a higher dose? What do you all think?

 

[BusynMember]

Right off the bat, my inclination is to think that the work, including the reading, is getting harder and Aspies can be very bright, but they still may need help in school. My Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) son did ok until the work got really hard and the stimulation of his classmates started distracting him. He needed help. Does your son have any help in place? Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) kids do well with help and 1-1. Focalin will not solve all the problems of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Sometimes when Aspies find things tough they lose motivation.

Another issue: Does he have friends? If so, are they good kids or are some of them a little not-so-nice. He's also at an age when drugs can come into the picture. Middle School is a very hard transition for all kids, but for Aspies...in my opinion worse and harder.

 

[InsaneCdn]

So often, we find the solution to ONE layer, then discover... there is more.
The ADHD medications may take some of the exhaustion out of trying to focus.
What else is causing burn-out?

Difficulty level of the work, auditory processing issues, bullying... just for three totally different "what-ifs" to toss out there...

 

[StressedM0mma]

I am going to go in a different angle here just because we saw this in our house last year. difficult child was in rare difficult child form last year. Almost the entire school year. And, we spent SO much time focusing on her and all of her issues, we sort of let our attention of easy child her work slide. We figured "oh she is a great student" "she is a senior" "she is such an easy going kid, she can mamage". Guess what? She wasn't managing. Her grades dropped too. She just didn't want to bother us with it, because she knew how overwhelmed we were with difficult child. So she kept quiet about it. So, could your easy child either be trying to handle it all on his own so as not to "bother"you, or could he be doing it for someattention? Or, he is doing it for some attention? He has seen that when difficult child acts out about school, she gets your attention?

 

[Californiablonde]

Well the mummy project he had to do was very easy. He had to make a sarcophagus out of a check box and duct tape. That's it. Something he totally can do he just chose not to. And as far as the reading, he is a very advanced reader. He picks out books at the store that are 300 pages plus and very small print. Stuff even too advanced for me but he loves them. So I don't know what his deal is. I will talk to him more about it tonight. I think that last time I spoke with him about it I came off as a little harsh and not understanding. So I will try a different approach and see if I can get anything out of him.

 

[TeDo]

That's about the age difficult child 1 started having issues like that. His disorganization got awful and stayed there. He got behind and then became VERY overwhelmed so he gave up. The work became harder at about 6-7th grade because it started becoming more abstract and required a lot of inferring that he had no clue how to do because of his Asperger's. That's when we started the more detailed testing for an IEP that wasn't just behavioral anymore. Between that and the professionals I found to do more thorough evaluations, we found a lot of learning issues that weren't apparent before.

Have you read The Explosive Child by Ross Greene about how to go about talking to our kids? Using his methods for talking is what saved my family. I HIGHLY recommend you read it. There IS a reason and he may not even know what really is at the bottom of it or be able to explain it to you.